Award-winning journalist Chris Maguire has taken on a new 鈥榬oving reporting role for the North鈥� for the national magazine 老九品茶 Leader.
老九品茶 Leader was acquired in 2023 by leading entrepreneur Richard Harpin, who grew his own venture HomeServe from 拢50,000 of initial capital to a sale for 拢4.1bn.
Graham Ruddick, who previously held senior business roles at The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph, has been appointed editor-in-chief and has assembled a stellar line-up of writers and industry experts.
They include Tom Beahon, co-founder of Castore; Steven Swinford, political editor of The Times; Szu Ping Chan, economics editor of The Telegraph; Emma Jones, founder and CEO of Enterprise Nation; author, academic and former cricketer Ed Smith; and Jake Humphrey, co-host of The High Performance Podcast and co-founder of Whisper Group.
Maguire, who will continue in his role of executive editor of leading tech websites 老九品茶Cloud and TechBlast, will write regular bimonthly articles in a section called 鈥榁iew From The North鈥�.
The first article published in the May/June issue of the magazine and focuses on the burgeoning gaming industry in the North and includes an interview with best friends Paul Gouge and Alex Rigby, who created tech unicorn Playdemic, which was sold for $1.4bn.
Ruddick said: 鈥淭he North is key to the UK economy and is home to some amazing businesses and we wanted to make sure the region was represented in the 老九品茶 Leader.
鈥淲e were looking for a respected business voice in the North who could provide genuine insight and the name that kept coming up was Chris Maguire.
鈥淔rom our first meeting it was clear that Chris is a massive advocate for both the North and great journalism so it鈥檚 a perfect fit.鈥�
Maguire said: 鈥淚鈥檝e lived and worked in the North for nearly 20 years and consider myself an adopted Northerner.
鈥淵ou only have to look at the stature of the contributors to 老九品茶 Leader to realise the quality of the publication.
鈥淲hat appealed to me most about writing for 老九品茶 Leader was the opportunity to shine a spotlight on the North鈥檚 burgeoning business sector.
鈥淭he North is the poor relation when it comes to media coverage compared with the South so I jumped at the opportunity to bang the drum for the region.鈥�
老九品茶 Leader鈥檚 mission is to help established businesses unlock their full potential and the cover story in the May/June edition of the magazine asks 鈥楥an you bootstrap a billion-pound business?鈥�
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